Question

A population of mice in a field contains 5000 individuals at the beginning of a study. During the course of 1 year 2500 new individuals are born and 1000 individuals die, such that the population size after 1 year is 6500. Assuming that annual per capita birth rate (b) and per capita death rate (d) do not change, what will the population size be after another year has passed

Answer 1

The population size would be of 8,450 mice.

Step-by-step explanation:

While the initial population of mice was 5,000 and there were 2,500 new births, the birth rate is 50% (2,500 / 5,000 = 0.5). Now, the 1,000 deaths, in turn, represent a mortality rate of 20% (1,000 / 5,000 = 0.2). In this way, at the end of the year, the number of mice became 6,500 (5,000 - 1,000 + 2,500).

Maintaining the same population growth rates, the number of new births would be 3,250 (6,500 x 0.5), and the number of deaths would be 1,300 (6,500 x 0.2), with which at the end of the second year the number of mice would be 8,450 (6,500 - 1,300 + 3,250).